Three Words
by Cyberwolf
Summary: Neji never knew the trouble three simple words could get him into. Nejiten.
1. yeah, they were all yellow

**Title: **Three Words  
**Rating: **T or PG-13  
**Fandom: **Naruto  
**Genre: **Fluff, romance, humor  
**Characters: **NejiTen  
**Notes**: Begun while watching the OC with my brother. Also inspired by having Coldplay on my iTunes. An old fic posted on LJ yeaaaars ago.

* * *

_  
look at the stars, look how they shine for you  
and everything you do  
yeah, they were all yellow_

_-_Coldplay

* * *

It was a beautiful night – starry, clear, deliciously cool. The sakura trees were in full blossom and the tiny pale flowers fell like a fragrant snow. Tenten turned her face up to watch them float down, laughing in sheerest delight. Filled with a bright, perfect joy, she flung her arms to the side and spun, unselfconscious as a child.

A few steps behind, a quiet smile hovering on his lips, Neji watched her with his heart in his eyes. They'd had formal dinner at the Hyuuga compound, Hiashi inviting Tenten in an act of incredible symbolism. Neji, who hadn't thought Hiashi had even known who Tenten was, had been incredibly nervous, but Tenten had charmed everyone, gotten several of his younger cousins all but worshipping her, and generally been a raging success. She had disdained her usual practical garb for formal-wear; not a kimono or a yukata, but a waist-fitted _qipao_ dress cut in the style of her motherland, in red-and-gold silk, with a high Mandarin collar and dragons climbing her length.

Neji thought she was stunning in it. He had almost punched one of his cousins who had loudly agreed with that assessment.

Tenten turned to face him, smiling widely. There were sakura blossoms caught in her hair, like starbursts against the night of her sable curls. Neji's own smile widened and he reached for her.

Tenten ducked away playfully, laughing, eyes bright. Then she came to him, folding herself against his body, tucking her head under his chin. Neji adored it when she did this; it always made his thoughts go hazy and soft, and he felt like he wanted to protect her forever.

His arms tightened around her; she moved her head from under his chin to look up at him, and he kissed her, with silk underneath his fingers, and the scent of sakura-blossoms in the air, and stars bright in the sky.

It was perfect. It was sweet. It was tender.

It was, of course, too good to last.

"I love you," she sighed.

Neji's happy daze stuttered to a halt. Tenten, feeling the sudden tension in him, snapped out of her own dreaminess and pulled away slightly to look at him.

Neji suddenly felt very awkward. "Um. Thank you?"

Tenten looked as confused as he did. "Er, you're welcome."

They stood together uncomfortably, while Neji reeled for mental footing. Tenten's expression grew uneasy, then cool, and she broke away. She brushed herself off, straightening her dress, finger-combing the blossoms from her hair.

"Thank you for dinner," she told him, politely. "It was wonderful. My compliments to your chef." She looked around, with the trained gaze of a kunoichi reconnoitering the terrain rather than the childlike wonder with which she'd delighted in stars and moon and flowers earlier. "This is close to my apartment. I can make it from here," she said, bowing to him. "Goodnight, Neji."

Neji was trying to speak, but his vocal chords were rebelling against him. And he was still wordless when she walked away from him, vanishing into the darkness.


	2. nobody said it was easy

_nobody said it was easy  
oh it's such a shame for us to part  
nobody said it was easy; no one ever said it would be this hard_

-Coldplay

* * *

Neji couldn't remember how he went home, but he was midway through undressing when the full import of what had just happened hit him. His tunic dropped from suddenly numb fingers, as Neji slumped against the wall, letting his legs go slack as he slid down and buried his head in his hands.

"I let her walk away…I said 'thank you!' Why did I say that!" He raised his eyes to the unforgiving ceiling. "She told me she loved me! And I…"

"SHE WHAT!"

"YOU WHAT!"

Neji jumped as a pile of his relatives suddenly spilled into his room, babbling. One of them – his great-uncle Hino, he realized, the one who had been so impressed by Tenten's knowledge of metallurgy – grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, scolding him until Hiashi shouldered him away. Neji relaxed; only Hiashi resumed the shaking and the scolding, but much harder.

Over the many-voiced babble, Neji could get the gist of his being an idiot, her being a catch beyond anyone's dreams for him, and my god, Neji, saying _thank you?  
_  
"Hyuugas may be aloof but we are not graceless fools!" bellowed a particularly old Hyuuga elder, brandishing his walking-cane at Neji. "In my day, we knew how to charm ladies, not offend them!" His equally elderly wife, who had been known to beat him in public with a spoon, nodded sharply beside him. They pinned Neji with twin gimlet stares.

Neji would have said something, but he was distracted by a sudden sharp pain in his shin. Biting back a curse, he looked down to see Heiji, one of his youngest cousins, glowering at him. "You get Tenten-neechan back!" the six-year-old ordered him. Hanabi, beside him, glared her agreement.

While Neji was overwhelmed by his clan-members, he did not notice the small gathering of male Hyuuga, of his age-range, talking quietly to each other. They stood apart from the rest, gathered in the courtyard rather than piling into his room like the others. They were grinning, and their eyes were lit up; one of them even punched the air.

* * *

The next day, Neji realized that there was no refuge. Upon arriving for training, he learned that a) Tenten wasn't coming and b) Lee and Gai knew.

Oh, they knew.

And they spent most of the morning alternately scolding him and bewailing Neji's "heart of stone, hard as rock! But not Rock as in Rock Lee because he/I is/am of such a marvelously youthful disposition that he/I would _never_ break a young lady's heart with such cold, unfeeling words!"

When Neji pointed out that he hadn't actually said anything, they chorused, "But that's the _problem_!" and began to weep on his shoulder. Since Neji felt that if anyone should be crying, it ought to be him (not that he would, of course) he was less than understanding. He Jyuuken-palmed them away; only to have Gai thrash him soundly, not for the Jyuuken palm-strike but for his behavior towards Tenten.

"You might have at least told her you didn't love her!" Lee bawled at him from where he waited for his turn to avenge his flower of a teammate. "Instead of making light of her feelings like that!"

"But…but…I…" Neji stammered, trying to dodge his sensei's rapid-fire attacks. He caught a roundhouse to the head and flew twenty feet away, impacting against a tree. He slid down, half-dazed. "I don't not love her," he protested blurrily to the tree.

Then he blacked out.

* * *

Pardon the Hyuugas. Pretend that copious amounts of sake were served during the dinner? Actually, after all the "Hyuuga disapprove of lowborn Tenten" I just wanted to write a fic where they're rooting for her. Come on, pushy relatives (who plan your wedding after one friendly meeting, goddammit) can be just as annoying as disapproving ones.

Sorry Wildcatt, no topless Hyuuga slaveboys. Yet. (sniggers evilly)


	3. you don't know how lovely you are

_come up to meet you  
tell you i'm sorry  
you don't know how lovely you are_

-Coldplay

* * *

Neji wasn't quite sure he was awake. As he began a long, slow swim to that happy state called consciousness, little details impressed themselves on his half-dazed mind, haphazardly and in no particular order. He was laying on grass, underneath the shade of a tall tree – the tree he had been roundhoused into, he realized blurrily – and it was approaching late afternoon, to judge from the richly golden quality of the sunlight. It shone through the leafy canopy above his upturned face, creating sun-dapples over the grass and him. He found the play of shadows and gold strangely fascinating, and let himself gaze dreamily at his own sun-dappled hand for a moment. The air was comfortably warm, the happy medium between afternoon heat and twilight coolness. He could hear the quiet hum of grasshoppers, the rustling of leaves and grass in a breeze, and somewhere a bird sang its last song for the day. And he was lying on someone's lap.

Then he realized _he was lying on someone's lap_ – on _Tenten's _lap – and this was so unlikely that it was obviously a pleasant daydream, conjured up by his addled wits. He let himself sink back into the soft haze of dreams – at least here she wouldn't be angry and hurt, and he could let himself simply enjoy her presence…

"Oh, good! You're awake," he heard her exclaim softly, just as a throb of intense pain from his temples dragged him further into the world of waking. He let out a low groan involuntarily.

Through eyes screwed half-shut, he could see Tenten wince in sympathy. She had always been badly affected by things that hurt him – sometimes it seemed she took his hurts harder than he did himself. "Does it hurt?" she whispered. Carefully she began to stroke his head. Somehow the cool touch of her hand on his brow, gentle, soothing, seemed to make the pain lessen. Unconsciously he leaned his head towards her hand.

"Poor Neji," she crooned, a note of amusement creeping into her voice now that he seemed to relax. "Gai-sensei really hits hard when he wants to, doesn't he? Don't worry, I had a word with the boys…they understand now. I'll make sure they apologize."

The reason why Gai-sensei _had_ hit him – and hard, as Tenten had said, loathe though he was to admit it – suddenly struck Neji's mind, and he tensed. And what did she mean, make sure they apologized? Why _was_ she here, wasn't she supposed to be avoiding him?

Tenten seemed to translate the question in his eyes into precisely what he was thinking. She sighed, and somehow her entire demeanor seemed to…dim. She did not sulk, or look angry, or even saddened. Nothing so obvious. And yet…

"They weren't right to try and punish you for something that was no fault of yours," she said softly, still lightly caressing his brow with one hand. "They were trying to…protect me, I know."

'Avenge _her is more like it_,' Neji thought to himself, but kept silent.

"But I don't need protection, and if…when I…if I make a mistake, I should be the one to take the fall," she said, suddenly, decisively.

Neji felt his stomach knot. Mistake?

"_I'm_ sorry, Neji," she said, finally. "I had no right to put you into such an awkward position. It's a fairly…deep…thing," she stammered, blushing lightly. "…and not to be taken lightly. You…_we_ weren't ready yet, I mean it's only been, what? Six months?"

_'Six months and seventeen days. I admitted to having…feelings for her on the night of the Kyuubi festival, and that was in October, and that was six months ago, and seventeen days since the eleventh…'_ Neji's mind rattled off in a strange non-sequitur. He stared up at her.

"I guess…I guess I was carried away by it all. The whole night had seemed so _perfect_, like a fairy-tale. The weather was nice, your family was so charming…"

Neji's mind broke a little at that.

"And you were…you were so sweet that night. Such a gentleman," she teased him gently, though he could see the strain beneath her smile. "Opening doors, helping me to my seat, even pouring tea for me!"

Neji tried not to flush. Half of that 'gentleman-like' behavior, as she had put it, was to make sure certain others of his clan understood that she was there as _his_ guest - not theirs. And it was not for _them_ to open doors for her, serve her tea, or receive her grateful smiles…

"It was like…like being a little drunk, you know?"

No, he didn't. To his intense shame, one shot of alcohol was enough to make him pass out. And, how would _Tenten_ know what it was like?

"Not on alcohol, but on being _happy_. And I blurted…it…out without thinking, and I was embarrassed and that's why I walked off, and I'm sorry Neji…"

"It's okay," Neji mumbled, his first words so far, not quite sure what he was agreeing to. Tenten smiled at him, then lowered her head to press a light kiss on his forehead – his unbound forehead, Neji realized as he felt her lips on his bare skin - on the extra-sensitive curse-seal. He shivered.

"Can we…can we forget about last night?" she asked softly, her face still mere inches from his. "Can we just…rewind to where we were?"

Neji thought – at least his fuzzy-edged mind approximated something like a thought, where it wasn't preoccupied with wanting her to kiss him some more – that it was unfair for her to ask him questions when she was so close, he didn't want to waste time on having to answer, he could hardly answer at all…

"Yes," he murmured, and kissed her.

* * *

"So, do you want to have dinner tomorrow?" Neji asked, later, feeling quite pleased with his lot in life. He planned to bring her to that new Chinese restaurant that had just opened…it was expensive, but it was worth it. _She_ was worth it…

"Neji?" Tenten asked him, turning slightly in his arms. "You do remember I have an A-class mission tomorrow? One for which I'll be out of the village for three days? I told you about it last Tuesday!"

Tuesday…Tuesday…

* * *

_"Neji?"_

_"Hm?" he mumbled against her neck. She smelled…nice. Really…nice._

_"I have a…" Neji nipped at her throat, letting his teeth imprint slightly on the soft skin. "…ah…a…a MISSION."_

_"Yes?"_

_"An…A-Class…finally…" Her head fell back, allowing Neji easier access to those fascinating hollows in her neck. "I'm going to…to…the Sand! The Village of the Sand!"_

_"Really?" Neji said, now becoming interested in the shape of her collar-bones under her slightly tanned skin._

_"…" Summoning a reserve of willpower that even she had not known she'd possessed, Tenten shoved her boyfriend away from her – hard enough that he fell off the couch and onto the floor. "I have an A-Class Mission, my first solo A-class mission, and it involves a missing-nin who may be hiding in the Village of the Sand," she informed him from her vantage point above his bemused – and slightly sulky – face. "I estimate it will take me about three days to complete, since Kazekage-sama's agreed to let me have full access to his village's files. I'll be leaving on the 29th."_

_"My uncle's invited you for dinner on the 27th," Neji pointed out._

_"I know, I know. Don't worry! I even have the dress I'll wear all picked out."_

_"You'll wear a dress?" Neji's mind wandered off into imagination._

_When Tenten huffed and threw something at his head, he dodged it, clambered back on the couch and promptly resumed where he had left off._

* * *

"I remember now," Neji lied.

Tenten eyed him suspiciously, but decided not to call him on it. "Yes. Anyhow, I can't tomorrow. When I get back?" she asked, twining her fingers in his.

"Sure," Neji shrugged.

"Good!" Tenten chirped. She suddenly got to her feet. "Well, I had better double-check my supplies for the mission. See you tomorrow?"

"I'll come by at 7," Neji affirmed, since most out-of-village missions left early in the mornings.

He walked her back to her apartment, silent but easily so. She held his hand the whole time and Neji reveled in it – when they passed by one of his cousins he fought the urge to smirk. As they said goodnight, his kiss at her doorway was harder than it usually was.

"Tenten," he said, as she slipped through the doorway. "You…I mean…" She had said to let it go, to forget it, and he had felt so relieved - but he somehow couldn't keep from picking at it. He took a deep breath. "Didyoumeanit?"

Tenten stared at him in confusion. "Sorry, Neji, I didn't catch that…"

"Never mind," Neji said firmly. He hesitated, then leaned over to kiss her softly on her brow, as she had kissed his curse-seal earlier. "Be careful."

"Of course, Neji," Tenten promised, smiling at him. "Goodnight."

Somehow, Neji decided not to leave just yet; he wanted to double-check that she was alright. So he activated his Byakugan – just in time to see her slide down against the door and whisper to herself – her lips moving slowly enough to lip-read easily – "_Of course I meant it."_


	4. and the wheels just keep on turning

_and the wheels just keep on turning  
the drummer begins to drum  
i don't know which way i'm going; i don't know which way i've come _

- Coldplay

* * *

Neji felt uneasy. And he didn't know why.

Well, actually, yes he did: Tenten had been gone on her mission – her "first solo A-Class!" as she had excitedly told him – since yesterday. It was perfectly natural to worry a little about her, to wonder if she was doing well in the hellishly hot climate of Suna, if she had been able to track down the missing-nin, if she'd have to fight. This wasn't the first mission they'd taken apart, and it wasn't even the first A-Class, but…

Yes, that was perfectly normal. But he had seen the mission profile, and it was nothing she wouldn't be able to handle – to track the missing-nin down, especially with Gaara's full cooperation, would be no hardship for her research-oriented mind, and the missing-nin was levels below her in terms of combat aptitude. Added to that, he knew that in Suna there were very reliable and very formidable allies close to hand.

So, to be uneasy was understandable. But to be so unnerved that he jumped at odd noises yet missed entire lectures; to find himself absent-mindedly wandering into the strangest places; to actually have caught himself _chewing at the ends of his hair_…

No, Neji wasn't in a stable state of mind. And somehow, when he tried to image Tenten coming back hale and whole to Konoha, her mission deftly successful, in order to calm his worries…somehow it only made the odd pit in his stomach feel a little more odd.

It didn't help that his yearmates were treating him like a pariah. True to her word, Tenten had extracted a promise from Lee and Gai to "be nice to Neji!" That didn't stop them from glancing at him either accusingly or mournfully from time to time, somehow managing to make Neji feel simultaneously guilty and annoyed.

And Tenten (who surely hadn't expected that the entire Hyuuga clan knew of that night's debacle, and much less that they'd tell others about it) hadn't managed to extract similar promises from any of the females of their little group – with the result that Yamanaka and Haruno were glaring at him as if he'd killed, skinned and devoured kittens and puppies in front of them, Hanabi – who had taken to hanging around her older sister's friends – would periodically try to kick him in the shin, and Hinata – _Hinata_, who wouldn't say boo to a mouse, even if it gnawed her legs off – was giving him the cold shoulder. She wouldn't even bring tea to him in the morning any more.

Hiashi only beamed approvingly at this hitherto unexpected backbone of his eldest daughter.

* * *

Neji walked into the Ichiraku distractedly, more out of habit – Naruto had somehow made it the more-or-less de facto headquarters of the Rookie 9, with whom Neji's team was always lumped together – than out of any conscious decision. He began regretting it as soon as he looked up and saw who was there.

Teams 7 and 10 were gathered in one of the booths near the back of the restaurant, the two females of the teams fixing him with angry glares as soon as they noticed he was there. The other three boys, after gaping at their suddenly furious teammates, turned and saw Neji; understanding dawned in their eyes.

Understanding, and more. Neji kept his back very straight as he walked past the table. Shikamaru and Chouji were only bemused and a little – on Shikamaru's part – scornful, which Neji felt was very inappropriate on the part of a guy who was stringing _two_ kunoichi along – but it was Naruto who made him…wary. _Not_ nervous, _wary_. Naruto had reacted to the drama that was the latest chapter of the NejiTen story as strongly as any of the girls, perhaps a little more. That damn crusader-for-all-wronged personality of his!

And _no_, Neji wasn't thinking of what had happened the last time Naruto had held him responsible for a girl's suffering.

Worried, overwrought, tense and to top it all off, _hungry_, it wasn't a surprise that Neji snapped when he saw Naruto's lips lift slightly over his too-large canines to growl softly.

"What is your problem, Uzumaki?!" Neji hissed, spinning on his heel. The other people at the table, even the angry girls, flinched a little – but Naruto only bared his fangs a little more.

"Isn't it obvious? _You're_ my problem."

Neji glared back, letting his veins bulge ever so slightly in the prelude to a full Byakugan. "It's got nothing to do with you. This is between _me_ and _Tenten."_

Naruto sneered back. "Man, after what you did, I'd be surprised if there still _is_ a you and Tenten."

At the jinchuuriki's incendiary words, Shikamaru let out a low whistle, while Chouji focused very hard on his noodles and the girls nodded in sharp agreement. Neji clenched his fists until the bones in his hand twinged.

"Shut up!" he snarled, very uncharacteristically. "It's not like that – we're _past _that, it's not an issue anymore! So shut up, and leave it! She's already said sorry…"

Naruto surged to his feet, while the others drew in sharp breaths. Blinking, feeling the atypically blind rage leave him, Neji began to feel that maybe he'd said too much.

"You asshole!" Naruto raged, trying to get at Neji. "You made her apologize for _loving you_? _Tan'inga, langhiyaka!" _he spat, reverting to some of the more exotic curses he'd learned while traveling the world with Jiraiya._ "_What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

Neji stepped back from the younger boy, watching in some fascination as the six scratches on Naruto's face darkened and shifted, turning into angry streaks that ran from jawbone to cheekbone. Sakura and Chouji were holding onto him now, while Shikamaru moved to block Naruto's way out of the booth. All five of the younger teenagers were looking at Neji with shocked eyes, as if he'd confessed to thinking that Orochimaru was really cool or something. Well, maybe the way he'd put it had sounded a little bad…

It was then, with Naruto snarling and the others glaring and old man Teuchi setting up a "Witness the Latest Episode of Konoha Love Love Live Drama, Exclusively at the Ichiraku!" sign outside that Kiba popped in to tell them that Tenten was back.

* * *

They had almost stampeded out of the Ichiraku, Naruto flinging a handful of ryo back to the disappointed proprietor to cover the costs. (Kiba would later discover having been deftly pickpocketed.) Neji was hauling Kiba along by the collar of the dog-user's jacket, demanding directions.

"At the Lion's Gate, the east side of the village," Kiba choked out. "Why…why don't you know? Hinata was fetched by Hanabi, and I saw some of your cousins heading that way earlier, with gifts and stuff…I thought…"

At Kiba's words, Neji felt that odd pit in his stomach turn into a sensation of cold falling – it felt like _fear_. He abruptly let go of Kiba's jacket, dumping the younger boy on his ass as the Hyuuga prodigy sped towards the Lion's Gate.

* * *

Tenten had been feeling rather pleased with herself. She had spotted a strange discrepancy in the Suna's account-books that all their analysts had missed, and it had turned out to be a bright red sign to where the missing-nin was hiding – and using his accomplice to siphon off funds from Suna's treasury. She had caught him the same day she'd arrived, earned the respect of several Suna-nin and even Temari had given her a gruff, "Good job, bun-head."

Best of all, she could go home early! She had been so eager to go home that she hadn't waited for sunrise, departing Suna while the stars still glittered in the deep blue of early morning.

And perhaps that had actually been a mistake. Maybe she should have gotten some more sleep. Maybe she should have eaten breakfast. Because obviously the journey and the lack of sleep had caused her to go delusional.

There couldn't _really_ be a crowd of half-naked Hyuuga boys waiting – waiting _for her -_outside the village gates...right?

* * *

More on that later. *evil smirk*


End file.
